Is COVID-19 the ‘Imagined’ Disease X the WHO Listed Years Ago?

Back in 2018, a group of entities has come with the term ‘Disease X,’ which referred to an upcoming pandemic caused by a novel pathogen that had not yet existed. As the world today is facing an epidemic, it is worth questioning whether COVID-19 is the disease the group referred to.

The unknown Disease X was detailed as resulting from a virus strain found in animals and would appear somewhere on the planet where there’s lots of economic development but also wildlife. This disease would be confused with other conditions at first, the group claimed, and would spread in a rather quick and silent manner. It would affect the way humans travel and trade, would appear in multiple countries, and stop the economy even before it would be declared a pandemic.

A few years have passed since then, and now we are facing a new coronavirus which causes COVID-19. Simply put, COVID-19 is Disease X, as per numerous reports. The virus is spreading in rather peculiar ways, and scientists have not yet provided any clear explanation about this. Also, it caused lockdown in numerous countries and severely affected the economy, among other things.

An Unknown Disease X

However, the World Health Organization (WHO) has already had a scenario in which a new virus would affect the globe. The organization decided to keep the silence when it comes to this topic, but to some extent, the correlation between the two is evident, and for some, it is clear.

Unlike other diseases already known and listed on a register by WHO and the group of people that came with it, Disease X did not exist. It was just a name replacement for a new pathogen that needed to be prepared for. We are now living under lockdown, as a consequence of Disease X, or COVID-19.

“It may seem strange to be adding an ‘X,’ but the point is to make sure we prepare and plan flexibly,” said back in 2018, John-Arne Rottingen from the WHO.

Back then, the group of people that came with the term already knew that a pandemic would be due to a new virus. Simply put, similar to the new coronavirus. Therefore, it is not far-fetched to say that there is a plausible connection between COVID-19 and the WHO’s ‘imagined’ Disease X. We should rather acknowledge it, because Dr. Peter Daszak, one of the people in the group that came up with the idea, admitted it as well.

On the other hand, the WHO, still struggling to fight SARS-CoV-2, is now well behind its 2-year-old plans to address an imagined but now real outbreak.

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